Gr6 graduation - Adora style

If the dress request had come after the falling out of love with the pants that were soooo much work, the answer would have been quick and brutal. 

She must have caught me when I was riding high on the wave of having made the exact pants she'd asked for, and having been proven right that graduation was an event that called for a fancy outfit, rather than yellow cargo pants. Of course I could, and would, make the dress.

The brief: A deep red dress with overlay just like this one that the cartoon character Adora is wearing.

I was somewhat relieved by the dress design, as my memories of the 1980's version of the cartoon She-Ra was that she wore nothing more than a fur bikini and a sword.

There weren't many images of the back of the dress, and A declared she wanted it to be backless. 

I had one pattern that looked like it might fit the bill. A vintage one-size, sleeveless shift dress with rolled collar. Butterick  4379 I made it for myself in 2020 to attend a 50th birthday party. The theme was hawaii/50s/bright, and I figured this pattern in some wax print would fit the bill. Needless to say the party never went ahead. My dress has only been worn once on another summery day and this is the only photo of it, and please ignore whatever my face is doing. For a much better write up of the pattern, and in anticipation of me never getting around to add it to my blog properly, go check out Lower Your Presser Foot. 

Anyway, I tried that dress on A, and if we took about 2" depth out of the chest/armscye it wasn't a bad fit. I knocked up a muslin version in some cotton to see how the backless modification would fare. Meanwhile hitting up all the online stores again to try and find the right fabric.

It was Supercheap fabrics to the rescue once more with a satin backed crepe and matching georgette. The colour was a bit deeper than desired, but the need to have the two fabrics matching was more important than it being the exact shade of red.

The final version had more tweaking on the go and was very much pinned to fit then adjusted a bit as we went along. Thankfully a gold elastic belt was readily available at the local shopping mall. Done and ready for the proper graduation evening.